


heavy as a pyrite scheme

by orphan_account



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Post-Reichenbach, Reunion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-19
Updated: 2013-09-19
Packaged: 2017-12-27 02:24:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/973174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"People don't really go to heaven when they die."</p><p> </p>
            </blockquote>





	heavy as a pyrite scheme

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Caleb Groh's song 'Bottomless Coffee.' 
> 
> For Kendall with love.
> 
> Endless love and many thanks to Emily, for continued support, encouragement, editing, and friendship. This wouldn't exist without your help, and I doubt anything else I've ever written would, either. Gratitude in bounds.

It is easier than he thought it would be. So easy.

He sits at a table in a coffee shop a block away from the flat, waits until John walks by the window on his way to the Tube. 

He stands, walks a few doors down, jogs across the street.

Glances through the window to see if Mrs. Hudson is in Speedy’s. She’s not. 

He knocks.

\----

He considers sitting in the sitting room, taking a seat in his armchair, still in the same place, but doesn’t. It seems ominous and like something a villain in one of John’s _James Bond_ movies would do, maybe. He reconsiders, because he waited for Moriarty in the sitting room, and John may very well consider him to be a villain.

__He sits in the kitchen._ _

__The sun gets higher in the sky, stays, starts to drop._ _

__Sherlock wants to shower, but doesn’t. Wouldn’t be good for John to come home while he was in the toilet._ _

__He waits._ _

__And waits._ _

__\-----_ _

__When Sherlock was young, he used to make sure he was awake before his parents. He would pack books into his backpack and he would grab apple juice from the fridge and he would hide. Sometimes his hiding spots were so sophisticated that his parents wouldn’t find him in time to get him to school. They’d let him stay home with the nanny simply because they had other things to do other than search for him._ _

__And then his mum started crying a lot and his dad started yelling a lot, so Sherlock stops hiding before school, and starts hiding after. Then Sherlock and Mycroft had to talk to a lot of doctors, and they always wanted to talk to Sherlock more than anyone._ _

__They made him draw pictures of his family and play with a very small sand box and rake, which was boring._ _

__A year after Sherlock stops hiding, he walks into his father’s study and finds that he has shot himself, and there are even more doctors appointments after that, and stale rooms with boring walls made for waiting._ _

__Waiting, waiting, waiting._ _

__\----_ _

__“You’ve rather shown your hand, there, Doctor Watson.”_ _

__\----_ _

__It start to rain by the time Sherlock loses track of the hour. He had forgotten how the windows in 221b made the rain sound, as if they spread the sound of trickling rain like an echo through the small flat._ _

__His fingers feel frozen from lack of movement. He doesn’t know how long he’s been at the kitchen table. He got lost in how clean it all was, how the only thing out of place was a mug in the sink basin, and how even that seemed to fit in, just a bit._ _

__It doesn’t feel like the kitchen he left, and he breathes in deep, breathes out shaky, and thinks that maybe it isn’t._ _

__\----_ _

__There is a night, before, when Sherlock hadn’t felt like his mind was a black abyss, and maybe it was autumn, but for the life of him he cannot remember. He and John go out for dinner, end up eating Mexican from a food cart on the Southbank. They get a bottle of wine on their way back to the flat._ _

__It’s nice._ _

__Sherlock pours glasses for them both while John settles on the sofa with a medical journal. He hands John his glass, and says, “My mother used to say that there was a special place in Hell for people who held a glass of red by the stem.”_ _

__“And a place in Hell for people who hold white by the bowl. Almost certain that’s a quote from someone--can’t remember.”_ _

__Sherlock hums, sits at the other end of the sofa, and tucks his socked toes under John’s thigh._ _

__\----_ _

__Sherlock eventually puts on water for tea. John ought to be back soon enough. His left leg has pins and needles, which hurts much more than he thinks it should._ _

__The water boils._ _

__The water grows cold, and he sets it to boil again._ _

__He lays out two mugs, finds the honey in the cupboard exactly where he remembers it being._ _

__The water grows cold._ _

__He waits, but doesn’t put the kettle on again._ _

__\----_ _

__“Do you just carry on talking when I’m away?”_ _

__\----_ _

__Sherlock takes John to the local, one night. He’s meant to be looking for potential suspects in minor criminal activity that the Yard doesn’t even care about, but he buys them each a pint, anyway. No one interesting comes in, and they end up ordering chips to share, and a pitcher, and Sherlock ends up telling stories about Mycroft as a child, teenager, uni student, and John keeps laughing. They stay for a few hours, until Sherlock feels bubbly and bloated and blissful._ _

__Sherlock pays the cheque and when they try to leave, he needs to steady himself on John’s shoulder, for a moment._ _

__“For someone who’s an addict, I guess I thought you could hold your own,” John laughs._ _

__“Dormant,” Sherlock says, and it’s meant to sound more scolding, but comes out a bit sad._ _

__“You have an addictive personality, I have no doubt that you’ll be high-risk for the rest of your life.”_ _

__“Yes, Doctor,” he says, frowning._ _

__“I just meant--shit. I just meant you’re a bit of lightweight, yeah?”_ _

__Sherlock stumbles, and John laughs, and then Sherlock is laughing too. He feels light, and keeps laughing._ _

__\----_ _

__Sherlock falls asleep with his elbow leaning on the table, and awakes when he hears the lock turn in the front door off 221._ _

__\----_ _

__John is at the surgery and Sherlock organizes all of his ties based on the dominant colour. He throws out half of his magazines like John had asked. He’s bored._ _

__He texts John “ _I’m bored. SH._ ” _ _

__To which John replies, “ _Do something productive. Organize your mind palace._ ” _ _

__He picks up their dry cleaning._ _

__When John gets home, he is surprised and happy, and they eat dinner at Angelo’s._ _

__On the way home, Sherlock’s arm keeps bumping into John’s until they are pressed alongside one another, and Sherlock wants to cry._ _

__Once they get back to the flat, Sherlock needs to lean against the wall for just a moment, as he tries to compartmentalize the heady emotions that nearly knock him sideways._ _

__“You alright?”_ _

__“Hm, yes,” he says, but knows John can tell that he is lying._ _

__\----_ _

__John thinks he’s an intruder. Technically he is, but it’s not--_ _

__Not the same. No intruder waits until the homeowner returns._ _

__John blinks heavily. And then-- “What the fuck,” but it is quiet, and almost empty._ _

__“I’ve set out things for tea,” Sherlock tells him, pointing to the counter. Which is stupid, because John can see, John knows that. He moves to click the kettle to boil, again, but John raises his hand, so he stops._ _

__“Milk’s gone bad. Here,” he says, and shakily hands Sherlock a bag of shopping. His hand grabs onto Sherlock’s arm, and when he turns back to face John, he hits him square in the nose._ _

__And then again, across his cheek._ _

__\----_ _

__“We hated him.”_ _

__\----_ _

__There is an incident not long after Moriarty’s arrest, wherein John gets knocked out by a robber on a fire escape, and Sherlock throws the man over the second level landing. Sherlock pulls the metal until the emergency ladder loosens, and proceeds to be arrested by Lestrade for nearly killing the man._ _

__John has a concussion, but will otherwise be fine._ _

__The robber has two broken ribs and a broken nose, and is absolutely covered in blood._ _

__Sherlock spends just over five minutes in a cell before Mycroft calls Lestrade and Sherlock is free to go._ _

__John is not outside the station, not that Sherlock expected him to be. His phone is dead in his pocket, and he wishes it wasn’t. He hails a taxi and goes home._ _

__He pays the driver and runs up seventeen steps into 221b._ _

__John’s sat on the couch, a bag of frozen peas against his forehead. “Arrested, God damn, Sherlock.”_ _

__Sherlock is breathing heavily and cannot tell what the appropriate action is. Should he be worried or composed? He feels worried. Anxious, even. He throws his coat on the floor instead of hanging it on his hook, but he can see that John lined up his shoes, on the left side, where they always go, so Sherlock toes off his own, lines them up beside John’s on the right, before he crosses the room in a few swift movements._ _

__“What you did...” John trails off, mumblings lost. Which is not uncommon for John, with or without a head injury. He’s never been one to finish all his sentences._ _

__“I was afraid he’d really hurt you. If he’d killed you, I--”_ _

__Sherlock can see the moment the words hit John, stick and click in his thick and muddled brain, and the air in the room feels molasses-thick. John reaches across and takes Sherlock’s hand, tugs until the detective is forced to sit beside him on the sofa. John places Sherlock’s hand on his neck, finds the pulse point._ _

__“Sherlock, I’m fine. You’ll need to keep me awake so I don’t fall into a coma, but it’s fine.”_ _

__“It wasn’t fine, though, John it--”_ _

__Sherlock’s words are stopped because John’s mouth is pressed to his mouth, just pressed there, not moving, and _god_. John pulls his mouth away after what could have only been a few seconds, and it feels like a terrible loss, a limb missing, but he leans his forehead in towards Sherlock, touches their noses together. “Sherlock, I’m okay.”_ _

__“Okay,” Sherlock mumbles, after a beat._ _

__But then Moriarty is acquitted and free, and Sherlock never says or does anything braver, never gets to know any more secrets about John._ _

__\----_ _

__“Just the two of us against the rest of the world.”_ _

__\----_ _

__John is angry. Sherlock can’t---he was not prepared for long lasting anger. He imagined John would immediately react with violence. Imagined John would hit him._ _

__But John’s hands are shaking when he unclenches them, and Sherlock cannot look at him enough, cannot see enough._ _

__The room is loud, and Sherlock is tired. He can taste the blood in his mouth and he wants to wipe it across John’s mouth. Give the metallic taste back to John, for John to clench his fists in Sherlock’s hair or clothes or anything, really, anything other than at his sides, a banal action that is doing nothing to help._ _

__They stand in the kitchen across from each other, heavy breaths losing their weight, settling in around each other, reality shifting to fit them both in the same room once more. Sherlock breathes in deep and slow and quiet, and breathes out shaky. Eventually, John forfeits, puts on the kettle for one last time, sits, says, “Tell me.”_ _

__\----_ _

__“Look at us both.”_ _

__\----_ _

__It is wanton in its sentimentality, but there is a time when Sherlock is in America, and he thinks he is about to die, which is funny because he legally already is, but:_ _

__Sherlock thinks he is about to die and he has probably a minute, and he doesn’t even consider calling legal authorities, doesn’t consider anything, he just takes his new mobile out from his trouser pocket and dials John’s number and listens to it ring and ring. It is unfair. He knows it. But John answers even though the number must be unknown, and says, “Yeah, Hello? John Watson.”_ _

__And Sherlock feels a weight lift in his chest, like emerging from underwater, and he breathes out, evenly and flat, and in his best American accent says, “Sorry, wrong number.”_ _

__He does not die. Obviously._ _

__\----_ _

__“You could.”_ _

__\----_ _

__Sherlock tells him. They sit at the table for nearly four hours, and Sherlock tells him. He tells John about the racket ball, about the lorry, about jumping, and falling, and healing broken bones. He tells John about the desire to start using again, mutters a, “You said I was high-risk, I knew what was happening,” and John nearly starts to cry, then._ _

__He tells John about terrible hotel coffee, about Irene Adler, about Molly._ _

__He shows John the scar on his back from a stab wound, tells the story about the first man he killed, and how he was almost caught by a local copper after being sick in the bin outside the man’s flat immediately afterwards. He tells the story about giving a young waitress in Wisconsin a five hundred dollar tip after she tells him she’s saving money to get her Master’s degree in Chemistry._ _

__And then, at the end, he tells John about Sebastien Moran. About the other snipers, too, but he talks about how Sebastien knew Sherlock was coming for him, how when they finally met, Sebastien was just like Moriarty; fixated on John’s existence in Sherlock’s life. He tells John about how Sebastien had only started following John’s activities again in the last week, and how Sebastien Moran is dead now, in the bottom of the Thames, which is why Sherlock is home, because it is safe for them, again, finally._ _

__\----_ _

__“Enough for a lifetime. Far too much.”_ _

__\----_ _

__“What do people normally say?”_ _

__\----_ _

__“It’s all fine.”_ _

__\----_ _

__“I need you to concentrate, close your eyes.”_ _

__\----_ _

__“That’s what I was suggesting.”_ _

__\----_ _

__“Bet you never saw this coming.”_ _

__\----_ _

__“But then, people do get so sentimental.”_ _

__\----_ _

__“People don’t really go to heaven when they die.”_ _

__\----_ _

__“How often are you away?”_ _

__\----_ _

__John excuses himself to call in sick to the clinic for the next day, and tells Sherlock to shower._ _

__When Sherlock emerges from the loo, the lights in the kitchen are off, and the mugs for tea have joined John’s from the morning in the sink, but the light to Sherlock’s room is on, and the door is open._ _

__\----_ _

__“John Watson thinks love’s a mystery to me.”_ _

__\----_ _

__“Interesting, yes? Emotions...”_ _

__\----_ _

__“Old scorns. Resentments.”_ _

__\----_ _

__“Joining me?”_ _

__\----_ _

__“Just stop it.”_ _

__\----_ _

__“The bedroom upstairs is full of boxes and is without a bed, now.” John throws a pair of Sherlock’s old pajama pants in his direction from across the bed. “You can either sleep on the left side or on the couch, but I’m turning in. You need to sleep, you look like shit.”_ _

__Sherlock nods and tosses the towel that he’s been wrapped in across to John’s laundry hamper, pulls on the pajamas that John still had on hand--strange--and stands straight, waiting for John to look at him._ _

__“Uhm which--” Sherlock clears his throat, tries again. “Where would you rather I slept. I don’t want to intrude. I know this is...not good at all, and...overwhelming.”_ _

__“Sherlock, I don’t know. I don’t know what you want me to say, or do. You’re... you’re here and I’m quite cross about it, but I’m also very happy, and I--If you want to stay, I’d love if you stayed.”_ _

__“Yes. Alright. Thank you.”_ _

__It is awkward in that it isn’t, and feels practiced and normal, which Sherlock has not felt in years, and never like this, never inches away from John’s body, open and so close. He breathes in deep, holds it. Starts counting to thirty._ _

__“Breathe, Sherlock, “ John mumbles, voice already rough when Sherlock gets to twenty-one._ _

__Sherlock reaches across the space between them, miles really, and takes John’s hand, pulls it back across the bed, finds his pulse point, leaves John’s hand there. Breathes out shaky._ _

__“It wasn’t fine and I missed you dearly, I had no idea I would be so affected by leaving you. I called you once, I was in America, I called you and listened to your breathe and speak just one last time, because if I was going to really die that would be the only thing I would have wanted, to know you were surviving without me, and--”_ _

__John’s hand moves away from Sherlock’s carotid, curls around the back of his neck instead._ _

__“Okay. Sherlock...” Sherlock breathes in deep, and then John’s mouth is there, not really moving, and Sherlock can feel John touch his nose to Sherlock’s, and breathes out shaky._ _

__“Okay.”_ _


End file.
